Fetal cells in skin cream stir anti-abortion fury
November 6, 2009
Lesley Ciarula Taylor
STAFF REPORTER
A Swiss company that uses aborted fetal cells in its skin cream is the target of a boycott campaign by Children of God for Life, a Tennessee-based anti-abortion group.
The group discovered the skin cream line last week, although the company, NeoCutis, has been in business since 2003.
Debi Vinnedge, from Children of God for Life, said: "There's just no excuse for using aborted babies in skin-care products."
A Toronto dermatologist says NeoCutis's use of aborted fetal cells in the cream is "a bit weird."
"We haven't seen this before," said Dr. Sandy Skotnicki-Grant, owner and medical director of Bay Dermatology Centre. "Cultured cell lines have been around since the 1960s. These cell lines are expensive and this is the one they bought."
The cultures used to make NeoCutis's three products containing fetal skin cells are cloned in a lab from the original donated cells used in research years previously at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. The research rationale was an attempt to replicate the extraordinary healing properties that fetuses have shown in prenatal surgery.
"The issue becomes what happens when you apply it to the skin of a 60-year-old," said Dr. Jason Rivers, a British Columbia dermatologist and professor with his own skin-care line. "I don't think there's enough clinical data to decide."
The cells themselves, he said, "are just created in a laboratory. There are no continuous donations."
NeoCutis said the ingredients were derived from tissue donated by the parents of the fetus, aborted for medical reasons. Its website points out the 1954 Nobel Prize for medicine went to researchers who used fetal kidney cells to develop the polio vaccine.
"Fetal skin cells are still a skin cell, whether it's from a fetus, a baby or an adult. It doesn't matter," said Skotnicki-Grant. "This sounds like another thing for anti-aging with some soft science. It's such a huge industry."
A 50ml tube of NeoCutis Bio-Restorative Skin Cream with Processed Skin Proteins is available online in Canada for $130.
Toronto Star
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